Georges Mandel Avenue, in Paris, was born in the Plaza del Trocadero, almost at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. The narrow Alameda that divides its two directions has been the name of who was one of its most illustrious neighbors for twenty -five years: ‘Allée … Maria Callas‘. The Greek soprano lived her last years at number 36 of Georges Mandel Avenue; He died there on September 16, 1977. He barely stepped on the street -“Every time I go out there they throw themselves against me,” he said-: the deterioration of his voice, the pain for betrayal -and his subsequent death -of Aristotle Onassis Onassis , the great love of her life, plunged her into a state of deep sadness. It was always suspected that the soprano committed suicide or left to die. However, in 2002, the Italian doctor Mario Giacovazzoof the Polyclinic Hospital of Rome, also revealed that the soprano suffered from dermatomyositis, an inflammatory disease that causes the weakening of the muscles, including those of the vocal strings. A scientific explanation that moves the aura of romanticism around her death but that does not remain a centimeter to the greatness of the legend of one of the greatest artists in the history of the opera, a genre that she changed in the middle of the century XX.
Precisely about the last days ofMaria Callas -of whose birth were fulfilled in December 2023 one hundred years- has fantasized the Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín In his film ‘Maria’ (in Spain the last name to the title), which has just reached the Spanish screens. Angelina Jolie plays the Greek soprano, a woman of appearance – and looks very different from the actress. To face the challenge, the interpreter studied singing for six or seven months, and her voice has mixed in the film with that of Maria Callas. “I wanted to be able to interpret the character,” he said Angelina Jolie-. Music was his life. His relationship with his voice and his body, his ability to sing, his presence on stage and his communication with the public was his life. And it was also the key to itself ».
On the choice of the protagonist of films such as ‘Lara Croft: Tomb Raider’ or ‘The exchange’ to embody a myth like Maria Callas, Pablo Larrain has justified: «They are women who have a physical presence on stage, in front of a camera or even in a room. You feel the enormous amount of humanity they bring. There is also a level of fragility, sensitivity and intelligence that Angelina possesses and that really differentiates it. You feel that it disappears on the role in a way that you can enter the movie and quickly forget that you are watching Angie. It requires a powerful and immense talent, but also someone who has the dedication, discipline and vulnerability of doing that ».
‘Maria’ starts with the death of the soprano and then travels to her last days; An imaginary television team follows him for an in -depth interview, while she proves her voice in an empty theater next to a repertoler. The anecdote is almost real: the soprano worked in Paris a year before her death with the British orchestra director Jeffrey Tate, with which he prepared a concert in London that finally did not occur. “Occasionally the glory was glimpsed through the jirs …”, said the musician in an interview a few years later.
Maria Callas lives with the company and the care of Bruna and Ferruccio (played by Alba Rohrwacher and Pierfrancesco Favino), He is hidden with mandrax -a drug that helped him relieve his pain -and travel through his memories, since the days of World War II in Athens, in which he sang for soldiers for some coins with which to buy food , until his romance with the millionaire Greek shipowner Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer); He appears in Dreams to Maria, and she goes to see him in her death bed when he asks.
“I think Aristotle Onassis was the love of his life,” said Pablo Larraín, “and I think they had different moments throughout the relationship. In the 70s they had a close relationship after their break with Jackiebut I think that, in addition, it was somehow a toxic relationship. She could disconnect from the world and leave everything under her control. I think there were moments of the relationship that were not very healthy. But I also think they came to a peaceful understanding of who were as individuals and as a couple at the end of their lives ».
When he speaks of ‘Jackie’, the filmmaker refers to Jacqueline Kennedywife of the murdered president of the United States -which also appears in the film -and who married in 1968 with Onassis, to the surprise and disgust of Maria Callas. The former lady was precisely the protagonist of another film by Larraín, ‘Jackie’ (2016), starring Natalie Portman. The Chilean filmmaker would return in 2021 to sign a film biography with ‘Spencer’, about Diana de Wales, played by Kristen Stewart.
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